Thursday, June 10, 2010

Why did Senfru build four pyramids?

Hi Owen. I'm at a conference this week and unless things are spoon fed to me via email they won't be posted til next week - so thank you for the link!

With photos and map.

Nearly 4,600 years ago a third dynasty pharaoh named Snefru launched one of the greatest construction projects in human history.

He decided, for reasons that are unknown to us, to build four pyramids scattered at different places across Egypt. He constructed two of them at Dashur (the Red and Bent pyramids), one at Meidum and another at a place called Seila. Together they used up more material than Khufu’s pyramid at Giza.

Casing stones were used to give them a smooth appearance – in other words make them into “true pyramids." This was the first time in Egyptian history that this was done.

Today a team from Brigham Young University, in Utah, is investigating these pyramids, trying to figure out why Snefru would build four of them in the way he did.

One of the puzzles the team is trying to decipher involves a cemetery not far from the Seila Pyramid. It’s a 40 minute hike away and research indicates that it has an enormous number of mummies. “We estimate over a million bodies in this cemetery,” said Professor Kerry Muhlestein in an interview with Heritage Key. It’s “very very densely populated by mummies.”

4 comments:

The question is: why did they invest that much money, power, precision and efforts, to build four pyramids with square bases and four peccaries base of each triangular face exposed to our eyes?What kind of event would justify, in our days of modernity, such an investment?A world cup certainly not, but in an hipotetical change in our atmosfere... could be. The only remains of old ancient civilizations are graves, not palaces. Nor houses, let's say.They lived somewhere while constructing their buildings. Where?I believe, personally, that a pyramid is a message left from old inteligent kings (and minds) to inteligent and young, leaders of the future. We are their future, we can't deny.

I watched an episde of Fred Dibnah during the week which featured the Papplewick pumping station. The building is hugely ornate because the machinery was built well under budget.

There may be other reasons but we should not lose sight of the possibility that keeping the male population occupied on community projects when there was now war to fight might have been socially important.

Good thinking, Kate. Never give 'em time to think! Keep their hands and minds and backs busy. Then, in the end, you not only have 4 LARGE buildings that will last for ever, and keep your name "alive", you have a population that will be happy with a job well done. Ok, 4 jobs well done.

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